Genealogical news from Spokane, Washington, USA, and the Inland Northwest.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Some Words of Advice from a Young Genealogist

Elyse Doerflinger is a 19-year-old genealogy enthusiast from California who has been making how-to genealogy videos on YouTube for several years and just started a genealogy blog last year. This past week, she wrote an interesting post on her blog, entitled Genealogy Societies Need to Look Toward the Future. She received so many comments that she had to write a follow-up post. Elyse makes some very valid points about the need for societies to embrace and welcome young people, to mentor them in research skills and to learn technology skills from them.

I don't know about you, but this 42-year-old genealogist expects to keep on researching for another 40 or 50 years. However...I certainly hope that EWGS and all the other societies I belong to are still around in the year 2051 or later, and that they will not die off with this generation of members. I hope that I will learn to accept new things as they come in the future to keep this society alive and vibrant.

Did you realize that we have a member of our very own society who is in elementary school? If you haven't met Terri Rehmann's daughter, Elizabeth, you're in for a treat! For the sake of all the Elyses and Elizabeths out there, I hope you'll read Elyse's posts (and the comments) and take them to heart. What can we learn from this? What are we doing well? Where can we improve? Please leave your comments below.

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